Maternity leave/pay and furlough

tf127

Hi
A question that I can't seem to find any answers to online. I am due back to work from a year of maternity leave shortly, but for various covid related reasons and childcare issues I'm not sure whether to return to work or not when it ends.
 My employer paid enhanced contractual maternity pay for the first 3 months, topping up to 100% pay (as opposed to the statutory 6 weeks at 90%). In my contract it says I have to return to work after maternity leave for at least a month or will need to pay back this enhanced pay. However, my employer contacted me during my leave to say they were furloughing my enhanced contractual pay, so the government would be covering 80% of this. My question is, am I still legally obliged to pay all of the enhanced contractual pay back when 80% of it was paid to my employer by the government via furlough? Should I only pay back 20% of it? I don't particularly want to ask my HR contact yet as I still haven't worked out what the best course of action is for my family, so any insights would be greatly appreciated

MattMattMattUK

If they claim money through CJRS they must pay you the whole amount, so they could not ask you to repay more than 20% top up. The important question would be did they actually furlough you, or did they place you on maternity leave, if they did not furlough you (even though they said they were going to) and so did not claim via CJRS then they would be entitled to the full amount. 

Jeremy535897

It depends on your contract, but you remain employed by your employer, and your employer decided to furlough you, so I don't see why you should pay anything back?

tf127

MattMattMattUK said:

If they claim money through CJRS they must pay you the whole amount, so they could not ask you to repay more than 20% top up. The important question would be did they actually furlough you, or did they place you on maternity leave, if they did not furlough you (even though they said they were going to) and so did not claim via CJRS then they would be entitled to the full amount. 

Thanks for your reply. As far as I'm aware they did furlough me, they asked me to provide written consent to be furloughed for the enhanced contractual pay backdated to cover when I went on mat leave (just before lockdown). They said that the other few people on maternity were also being furloughed like this. Fingers crossed they did anyway!

MattMattMattUK

I would think though, as you only have to go back for one month to not have to repay anything, then if at all possible it would make sense to go back, and avoid having to pay, at a minimum, 60% of a months salary. You also have to consider if it is worth making yourself unemployed, the jobs market is not exactly great at the moment. Is it worth asking them what flexible options there might be, work from home part time, something like that?

tf127

MattMattMattUK said:

I would think though, as you only have to go back for one month to not have to repay anything, then if at all possible it would make sense to go back, and avoid having to pay, at a minimum, 60% of a months salary. You also have to consider if it is worth making yourself unemployed, the jobs market is not exactly great at the moment. Is it worth asking them what flexible options there might be, work from home part time, something like that?

Thanks, yes good points and food for thought. It's a low paid position (albeit with a fair amount of responsibility), paid just over minimum wage, and full time childcare and commute costs would mean not much money left over each month anyway, so trying to work out what balance makes the most sense for us. I'd hope flexible working would be considered but my employer's track record for similar scenarios with other returnees isn't great, and there was a lot of push back on my request to work from home for a few days when heavily pregnant. There aren't currently any childcare facilities/childminders with availability near me at the moment to cover going back for that month, though on a waiting list so this could change and I'm sure I could work something out if lockdown isn't too severe at that point.